Stent grafts have been proposed to provide endovascular repair of vessels of the human or animal body such as the aorta and where such a vessel includes a side branch it has been proposed to use fenestrations to allow fluid access to the side branch. It is difficult, however, to align a stent graft with a fenestration to a side branch when deploying the stent graft by endovascular techniques.
Once such example is the thoracic arch of a patient where three main vessels exit from the thoracic arch and if a stent graft is to be deployed in such a region then fenestrations are required to allow access to these side branches.
It would be an advantage if there were a number of fenestrations so that the closest to a side branch could be used but the unused fenestrations could provide sealing problems.
It is the object of this invention to provided a stent graft arrangement for such a situation.
Throughout this specification the term distal with respect to a portion of the aorta, a deployment device or a prosthesis means the end of the aorta, deployment device or prosthesis further away in the direction of blood flow away from the heart and the term proximal means the portion of the aorta, deployment device or end of the prosthesis nearer to the heart. When applied to other vessels similar terms such as caudal and cranial should be understood.